Budget 2018-19

  About 2.5 million ceremonies are estimated to have taken place since mid-November, around a quarter of this year’s expected annual total. A quick glance at social media feeds in India over the past month shows a flurry of weddings as couples rush to tie the knot following a lifting of some virus curbs. About 2.5 million ceremonies are estimated to have taken place since mid-November, around a quarter of this year’s expected annual total, after the government eased some restrictions around gatherings. It’s a stark turnaround for India’s jewelers, who have seen demand hammered for almost two years as the coronavirus led to the postponement of many weddings — a key source of demand for the nation that considers buying and gifting of gold as auspicious — while broader financial hardship further curbed purchases. The bumper festival season may help push India’s gold imports to as much as 900 tons this year, the highest in six years , Metals Focus Ltd  said. That’s up from about 3...

  Besides being poorly paid, most of them are working without gloves, masks or sanitizers two years into the pandemic. Dressed in pink, the women have gone door to door for months, persuading people to get Covid-19 vaccines in some of India’s remotest corners, hinterlands and crowded urban slums, often risking their own personal safety. For their trouble, they make about $40 a month, a wage barely enough to make ends meet. More than a million of these frontline healthcare workers across the country — pivotal to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s goal of inoculating the nation’s entire population and reviving the $2.6 trillion economy — are soon about to snap. Nine  Asha workers  Bloomberg News interviewed across India said authorities who earlier assured them better wages, personal protective equipment and safe working conditions haven’t kept those promises despite a two-day stoppage last year. Even worse, some say they haven’t been paid for months. The All India Trade Union ...

  Hunting for variants requires a concerted effort. South Africa and the UK were the first big countries to implement nationwide genomic surveillance efforts for SARS-CoV-2 as early as April 2020. Since early in the COVID pandemic, the Network for Genomics Surveillance in South Africa has been monitoring changes in SARS-CoV-2. This was a valuable tool to understand better how the virus spread. In late 2020, the network detected a new virus lineage, 501Y. V2, which later became known as the beta variant. Now a new SARS-CoV-2 variant has been identified – B.1.1.529. The World Health Organisation has declared it a variant of concern, and assigned it the name  Omicron . To help us understand more, The Conversation Africa’s Ozayr Patel asked scientists to share what they know. What’s the science behind the search? Hunting for variants requires a concerted effort. South Africa and the UK were the first big countries to implement nationwide genomic surveillance efforts for  SARS...

  WHO said it is not yet clear whether the newly-detected   coronavirus variant Omicron   is more transmissible or causes more severe disease compared to other variants. The World Health Organization has said it is not yet clear whether the newly-detected coronavirus variant Omicron is more transmissible or causes more severe disease compared to other variants, including the highly-transmissible and globally prevalent Delta variant. There is currently no information to suggest that symptoms associated with  Omicron  are different from those from other variants, the WHO said, It added that initial reported infections were among university studies — younger individuals who tend to have more mild disease — but understanding the level of severity of the Omicron variant will take days to several weeks. Amid concerns over the detection and transmissibility of B.1.1.529, designated by the WHO as a variant of concern, the global health organisation said on Sunday that e...

The directives will allow direct entry of fully vaccinated expatriates without the need to spend 14 days in transit outside their countries before entering the Kingdom Saudi Arabia has announced that it will lift a travel ban on expats from six countries including India and Pakistan that was introduced to contain the spread of the Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic. The directives will allow direct entry of fully vaccinated expatriates without the need to spend 14 days in transit outside their countries before entering the Kingdom, Arab News reported.  Saudi Arabia ‘s Ministry of Interior issued the directive saying that changes will commence at 1 am on December 1. The English-language newspaper said that expats arriving from these countries must spend five days in quarantine regardless of their Coronavirus vaccination status outside the Kingdom. Earlier in February, the direct entry ban was imposed due to a global spike in Covid-19 caThe ban covered Lebanon, UAE, Egypt, Turkey, the U...

  The lockdown comes a day after a warning from National Health Commission officials that the outbreak would continue to worsen after spreading to 11 provinces in about a week China locked down a county that has seen the most Covid-19 cases in the nation’s latest delta outbreak, as an initial flareup in the northwest quickly spirals into a nationwide surge. Ejin, a county in China’s Inner Mongolia region, asked its 35,700 residents to stay home from Monday and warned of civil and criminal liabilities should anyone disobey the order, state broadcaster CCTV reported, citing a local government statement. The small county bordering Mongolia is the current outbreak’s hotspot, home to nearly one-third of the more than 150 infections found over the past week in the mainland. The lockdown comes a day after a warning from National Health Commission officials that the outbreak would continue to worsen after spreading to 11 provinces in about a week. China reported 38 Covid infections on Mond...

  One of the reasons for the success of India’s Covid-19 inoculation campaign was the trust that people developed in the vaccine and the process followed, writes Prime Minister Narendra Modi. India completed vaccination of 100 crore (one billion) doses on October 21, 2021, in just about nine months since starting vaccination. This has been a tremendous journey in dealing with Covid-19, especially when we recall how things stood in early 2020. Humanity was dealing with such a pandemic after 100 years and no one knew much about the virus. We remember how unpredictable the situation appeared then, as we were faced by an unknown and invisible enemy mutating rapidly. The journey from anxiety to assurance has happened and our nation has emerged stronger, thanks to the world’s largest vaccination drive. It has been a truly ‘bhagirath’ effort involving multiple sections of society. To get a sense of the scale, assume that each vaccination took just two minutes for a healthcare worker. At t...

  Research shows that children are not the main source of transmission of Covid-19 in the community, school reopening is unlikely to lead to a third wave Reopening schools is unlikely to cause a third Covid-19 wave or lead to a large increase in cases in adults, even with the more infectious Delta variant, experts say and scientific research has shown. With a majority of India’s children having lost a year-and-a-half of learning, the benefits of opening schools with precautions far outweigh the risks. An analysis of various studies shows that there was limited Covid-19 transmission in schools if precautions such as wearing masks, ensuring ventilation in classrooms and avoiding overcrowding were followed. Despite the more transmissible Delta variant having increased the number of Covid-19 cases in those below 18 years in the UK and the US, severe cases and deaths are still at similar levels as in 2020 and the rate of severe cases and deaths is lower in children than older people, da...

  Almost everyone will be either infected or vaccinated before the pandemic ends, experts agree For anyone hoping to see light at the end of the Covid-19 tunnel over the next three to six months, scientists have some bad news: Brace for more of what we’ve already been through. Outbreaks will close schools and cancel classes. Vaccinated nursing home residents will face renewed fears of infection. Workers will weigh the danger of returning to the office as hospitals are overwhelmed, once again. Almost everyone will be either infected or vaccinated before the pandemic ends, experts agree. Maybe both. An unlucky few will contract the virus more than once. The race between the waves of transmission that lead to new variants and the battle to get the globe inoculated won’t be over until the coronavirus has touched all of us. “I see these continued surges occurring throughout the world,” said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the Unive...

  The risk of blood clots is higher after infection with the SARS-CoV-2 virus than after immunisation with Pfizer and AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccines, according to a study The risk of developing adverse events such as blood clots is considerably higher after infection with the SARS-CoV-2 virus than after immunisation with Pfizer and AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines, according to a large UK study published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) on Friday. The team led by researchers at the University of Oxford in the UK conducted the study on thrombocytopenia — a condition with low platelet counts — and thromboembolic events or blood clots following COVID-19 vaccination with  Oxford-AstraZeneca  and Pfizer-BioNTech preventives. Some of these events have led to restricted use of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, known as Covishield in India, in a number of countries. The researchers compared rates of adverse events after vaccination with rates of the same events after a positive SAR...

  Covishield production to cross 120 mn doses a month, Covaxin 58 mn doses a month Production of both  Covishield  and Covaxin – Covid-19 vaccines from Serum Institute of India (SII) and Bharat Biotech – is set to rise from next month. The target of 1.35 bn vaccine doses between August and December, however, looks like a long haul. According to a response given in the Rajya Sabha, Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya said recently that the monthly production capacity of Covishield is projected to increase from 110 mn doses to more than 120 mn doses a month, whereas the production capacity of Covaxin is projected to increase from 25 mn doses a month to around 58 mn doses a month. Mandaviya added that apart from this, the Centre has also facilitated further capacity augmentation of Covaxin at central public sector enterprises including Haffkine Biopharmaceutical Corporation Ltd, Mumbai; Indian Immunologicals Limited (IIL), Hyderabad and Bharat Immunological...

  The cumulative number of coronavirus cases reported globally could exceed 200 million by next week, said WHO The highly-transmissible Delta variant of COVID-19 has now been reported in 135 countries, according to the World Health Organization which said the cumulative number of coronavirus cases reported globally could exceed 200 million by next week.The COVID-19 Weekly Epidemiological Update dated August 3, released by WHO, said globally 132 countries have reported cases of the Beta variant and 81 countries of the Gamma variant. It said the cases of Alpha variant have been reported in 182 countries, territories or areas, while 135 countries have reported cases of the  Delta variant,  which was first identified in India The global number of new cases has been increasing for more than a month, with over 4 million cases reported in the past week – July 26 to August 1, the update said. This increasing trend is largely attributed to substantial increases...

  Sunak wrote of his concerns to Prime Minister Boris Johnson before ministers are due to discuss August travel guidelines this week Chancellor  Rishi Sunak  has urged an easing of the UK’s travel restrictions, which he said are damaging the country’s tourism industry and overall economy. Sunak wrote of his concerns to Prime Minister Boris Johnson before ministers are due to discuss August travel guidelines this week, the Sunday Times reported. In the letter, Sunak said UK border policy was out of step with international competitors, and did not take advantage of the UK’s vaccine rollout, the newspaper wrote. About 72 per cent of UK adults are fully vaccinated and 88 per cent have had at least a first dose, according to government figures. That helped limit severe outcomes including hospitalizations and deaths as cases rose sharply into mid-July. Daily positive tests have receded since then. Sunak is concerned that the restrictions in place are harming UK  companies ...

  India remains on the red list under the international traffic system, which bans travel and imposes a compulsory 10-day hotel quarantine for returning British residents Fully vaccinated travellers from the US and European Union (EU) countries will be able to avoid a 10-day compulsory quarantine when they arrive in England from next Monday, the UK government said on Wednesday. Currently, only people who received their Covid-19 vaccine in the UK can avoid quarantine when arriving from these “amber list” countries under the government’s traffic list travel system. “We’ve taken great strides on our journey to reopen  international   travel  and today is another important step forward. Whether you are a family reuniting for the first time since the start of the pandemic or a business benefiting from increased trade — this is progress we can all enjoy,” said UK Transport Secretary Grant Shapps. “We will of course continue to be guided by the latest scientific data but th...

  Officials have confirmed that the new outbreak is caused by the Delta strain The rise of the highly-contagious  Delta variant  is challenging even the most aggressive Covid-19 containment regimes, an ominous sign as economies look to open up and return to pre-pandemic life. An outbreak that started at an airport in the eastern Chinese city of Nanjing is testing that country’s zero-tolerance measures, which are some of the most sweeping and comprehensive in the world. New infections are rising by the dozens and seeding subsequent clusters around China despite well-honed systems of mass testing and stringent quarantines. Beijing reported its first locally-transmitted infection in six months Thursday, linked to an outbreak in the southern province of Hunan among people who’d recently been to Nanjing. The variant is scaling some of the toughest virus defenses, with “Covid Zero” places —countries that had snuffed out the virus within their borders — still seeing outbreaks de...

  The Uttarakhand High Court on Thursday has extended the stay on the Char Dham Yatra till July 28. The Uttarakhand High Court on Thursday has extended the stay on the Char Dham Yatra till July 28. The High Court, earlier on June 28, had stayed the state Cabinet’s decision permitting Char Dham Yatra with a limited number of pilgrims and also ordered live streaming of Char Dham shrines. In view of Covid-19 and poor health preparedness, the decision of the government has been put on hold by High Court. Meanwhile, the Uttarakhand Government on Tuesday filed the Special Leave Petition (SPL) at the Supreme Court against the Uttarakhand High Court’s order staying the Char Dham Yatra. Earlier on June 25, the State Cabinet decided to partially open the  Char Dham yatra  for locals in limited numbers from July 1. Initially, it was decided, the yatra would be opened for residents of Chamoli, Uttarkashi, and Rudraprayag districts with a cap on the number of pilgrims to visit the tem...

  Mandavia gets Health portfolio; Scindia gets aviation; Puri gets additional charge of petroleum In the most comprehensive reshuffle of his council of ministers in his seven-year tenure, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday sacked many senior colleagues, elevated some, and infused the government with new, young faces. A new ministry of cooperation was also created. In all, 43 ministers were sworn in, taking the strength of the council of ministers to 77. The reshuffle had politics at its heart, but the inclusion of several technocrats and former bureaucrats suggested that governance and efficiency were the immediate priorities after the devastation left behind by the  Covid-19 pandemic . The government seemed to have accepted responsibility for lapses, but signalled the intention to move ahead aggressively. Battling the optics of Covid-19 mismanagement – the crisis faced by migrants that drew the ire of the judiciary; the oxygen and hospital bed shortages; and the extend...

  Of those dead in Seychelles, five had taken Covishield and one had been given Sinopharm. The coronavirus has killed six fully vaccinated people in the Seychelles, which is suffering heightened Covid-19 infections despite inoculating a greater proportion of its people than any other nation. Of those, five had taken Covishield, a version of the AstraZeneca Plc vaccine made in India, and one had been given Sinopharm, Jude Gedeon, the island nation’s public health commissioner said at a press conference on Thursday. Covishield has mainly been reserved for people over 60 in the Seychelles. The rise in infections, which surged at the beginning of May and has remained at elevated levels ever since, is likely due to the arrival of the highly-transmissible delta variant, which was first identified in India, Gedeon said. “It looks like delta came in Seychelles in May which explain the surge at the beginning of May,” Gedeon said. “We presume that the majority of cases we got in May was from...

  False claims are fueling vaccine hesitancy in pockets, undermining efforts to vaccinate some of the most vulnerable people in Asia. Though Gerry Casida is on the priority list for a free Covid-19 vaccine in the Philippines because of his asthma, he’s isn’t planning to get the shot any time soon. A video he found on social media of a woman claiming vaccines are being used for genocide helps explain why. “I’ve read a lot of posts on Facebook about how many died in other countries because of vaccines, and how that’s being concealed,” the construction worker, 43, from Manila said. “My mom also consulted a folk healer, who said the vaccines could affect my heart.” Millions of people like Casida in some of the worst  Covid hotspots  in Southeast Asia are in no rush for inoculation or just saying no, swayed by disinformation on social media from both local sources as well anti-vaccination movements in the U.S. Those false claims are fueling vaccine hesitancy in some pockets of...

  During a broadcast interview, the head of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said he’s “quite concerned” about the Delta variant in the US Washington [US], July 1 (ANI): The highly contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus is the greatest threat to the United States’ attempt to eradicate COVID-19, White House chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci said on Wednesday. During a broadcast interview, the head of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said he’s “quite concerned” about the Delta variant in the US. Dr Fauci told US media that the delta variant can spread “much more efficiently” and “cause more severe disease”. “The  Delta variant  has the capability of spreading much more efficiently from person to person. It also can cause more severe disease. So there are two things about it that are troublesome,” said the top US COVID-19 expert. Fauci further said that the good news is that COVID-19 vaccines have shown to be very ef...